Early data suggests the Vietnamese economy expanded by seven percent last year although, like many nations, it has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the fundamentals remain extremely positive, a feeling reflected by Saurabh Mathur, CEO of Halcom Vietnam, a specialist investment and consultancy firm focused on urban and infrastructure development. “It is very exciting to be working in this space because of Vietnam’s fast-growing economy,” he says. “To extend the discussion into our industry, which is largely centred on renewable energy, the opportunity is significant. Currently, around nine percent of the country’s energy mix is comprised of renewables, surpassing the target set for this year which was seven percent. Developing clean energy is quintessential if Vietnam wants to proceed with its annual growth in a green and sustainable manner.”
Indeed, electricity consumption has tripled over the past decade, growing faster than output, and the Vietnamese government has recently encouraged private sector to invest into RE, a void which HALCOM Vietnam is determined to help fill through renewable, sustainable developments. This responsible ethos and mindset to deliver on large projects was key to Mathur joining the firm in the summer of 2018, the CEO having spent the last eight years living in Hanoi and working with smaller businesses and big corporates in Vietnam, the Middle East and India.
“The journey so far has been exciting and eventful,” he says. “I am here with my family and we thoroughly enjoy living in Vietnam. In this short amount of time, I have had the opportunity to successfully develop our first greenfield 21 MW wind project, which became operational in Q1 this year, and now we have embarked on the construction of our first solar farm in southern Vietnam which will be completed in December this year. The pace of execution at HALCOM is fast.”